Where did the 'Big Bang' occur?

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Obvious Leo - - A true TOE must define a universe sufficient to its own existence.

What if we lack the language to define something so far beyond our ken?

In any case, the OP question is very like asking the proverbial snake: How far up can you swallow your tail?

[Obvious Leo]

What if we lack the language to define something so far beyond our ken?

We don't. The universe is something so simple that even a child could understand it, and in fact all young children intuitively do. Most of the problem lies in the fact that we use too many different words to describe the same thing. In my philosophy the words "reality", "the universe" "existence" and "everything" are entirely synonymous terms, and they are to a child as well. To a child reality is that which is continuously being made all around him and no sooner does he see it and it's gone, vanished into the mists of the past.

That's exactly all the Theory of Everything is. The universe is not a place. The universe is a PROCESS which the observer merely perceives as a place. That's why asking where the big bang occurred is a meaningless question. It occurred at a location in time and NOT at a location in space.

[UniversalAlien]

Nevertheless the possibility of there being a multiverse is an idea that cannot or should not be ignored. I imagine it even possible if we ever get to a thoroughly convincing TOE it may even include or exclude the the necessity for such a structure.

I disagree completely. The multiverse is a complete red herring because its existence can never be established, even in principle. If the big bang is accepted as a real occurrence, and there exists overwhelming evidence to suggest that it should be, then this universe cannot be causally connected to anything external to itself. Both the multiverse and the hidden spatial dimensions of string theory are hypotheses which have been bandied about for four decades and neither hypothesis has ever yielded a testable prediction. Theorists are almost unanimously of the view that this will NEVER be possible, even in principle, so these cannot be regarded as legitimate scientific hypotheses. The multiverse is like god. It is a hypothesis which lies beyond the reach of scientific or philosophical enquiry because nothing is knowable about it so it's just as big a cop-out as is god.

A true TOE must define a universe sufficient to its own existence.

"The multiverse is like god" - NO, it is you who are posting a magical god concept when you allow for a Big Bang to occur
out of nothing - something from nothing is like saying "In the beginning there was nothing and God said........."
The multiverse is the intelligent alternative - there was no beginning - an eternal existent state that may yield many
possibilities including a Big Bang and intelligent biological life to understand. - No beginning, no end, existence by
its very nature must be eternal - FORM NOTHING COMES NOTHING

[Dubious]

Nevertheless the possibility of there being a multiverse is an idea that cannot or should not be ignored. I imagine it even possible if we ever get to a thoroughly convincing TOE it may even include or exclude the the necessity for such a structure.

I disagree completely. The multiverse is a complete red herring because its existence can never be established, even in principle. If the big bang is accepted as a real occurrence, and there exists overwhelming evidence to suggest that it should be, then this universe cannot be causally connected to anything external to itself. Both the multiverse and the hidden spatial dimensions of string theory are hypotheses which have been bandied about for four decades and neither hypothesis has ever yielded a testable prediction. Theorists are almost unanimously of the view that this will NEVER be possible, even in principle, so these cannot be regarded as legitimate scientific hypotheses. The multiverse is like god. It is a hypothesis which lies beyond the reach of scientific or philosophical enquiry because nothing is knowable about it so it's just as big a cop-out as is god.

A true TOE must define a universe sufficient to its own existence.

I also completely disagree. We haven't defined the cause of its existence yet! The Big Bang is merely its consequence and not the actual point of incipience. Also, that a true TOE must define a universe sufficient to its own existence is too reminiscent of Aristotelian metaphysics to mean anything aside from not knowing whether the 'existence' of something else didn't cause THIS universe to exist. These are your assertions based on your philosophy.

Theorists hold various views, as expected at this stage of the game, on the possibility of a multiverse but there are almost none that would go so far as to claim it's a complete red herring or a cop-out. If that were true, as you assert, what would be the 'cause' of their investigations as to it's possibility some of which tenuously derive from our own theories regarding this universe?

Conditions state there there is NO such "overwhelming evidence" either way at THIS point in time and that a viable hypotheses for a multiverse as NEVER being possible is to be negated scientifically and philosophically until proven.

[UniversalAlien]

OK, are we having fun yet?

Hard Evidence for the Multiverse Found, but String Theory Limits the Space Brain Threat

"In recent years there have been many claims made for “evidence” of a multiverse, supposedly found in the CMB data (see for example here). Such claims often came with the remark that the Planck CMB data would convincingly decide the matter. When the Planck data was released two months ago, I looked through the press coverage and through the Planck papers for any sign of news about what the new data said about these multiverse evidence claims. There was very little there; possibly the Planck scientists found these claims to be so outlandish that it wasn’t worth the time to look into what the new data had to say about them. One exception was this paper, where Planck looked for evidence of “dark flow”. They found nothing, and a New Scientist article summarized the situation:

“The Planck team’s paper appears to rule out the claims of Kashlinsky and collaborators,” says David Spergel of Princeton University, who was not involved in the work. If there is no dark flow, there is no need for exotic explanations for it, such as other universes, says Planck team member Elena Pierpaoli at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles. “You don’t have to think of alternatives.”

One of those promoting the idea that “dark flow” was evidence for a multiverse was Mersini-Houghton, who in a 2008 paper with Holman wrote:

Our contention, then, is that these observations of bulk flow can be construed as evidence for the birth of the universe from the landscape multiverse imprinted on the superhorizon sized nonlocal quantum entanglement between our horizon patch and others that began from the landscape. When we calculate the size of the induced dipole in our theory and convert it into a bulk velocity dispersion, we will see that for the constrained values of our parameters we arrive at a velocity dispersion of order 670 km/sec, remarkably close to the observed value of 700 km/sec.

One might think that the refutation of their prediction by the Planck data would be a problem. Instead though, the Sunday Times reported a few days ago that Scientists believe they have found the first evidence that other universes exist. The story got picked up by other news outlets, and appeared in the Daily Mail as “The first ‘hard evidence’ that other universes exist has been found by scientists”. The source for the story was Mersini-Houghton:

Laura Mersini-Houghton, theoretical physicist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Richard Holman, professor at Carnegie Mellon University, predicted that anomalies in radiation existed and were caused by the pull from other universes in 2005.
Now that she has studied the Planck data, Dr Mersini-Houghton believes her hypothesis has been proven.
Her findings imply there could be an infinite number of universes outside of our own.
She said: ‘These anomalies were caused by other universes pulling on our universe as it formed during the Big Bang.
‘They are the first hard evidence for the existence of other universes that we have seen.’.............."

See whole articl here:
http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=5907

[uwot]

...The universe is not a place. The universe is a PROCESS which the observer merely perceives as a place. That's why asking where the big bang occurred is a meaningless question. It occurred at a location in time and NOT at a location in space.

Just curious, Leo; in your schema, can you have time without place? Would time mean anything if nothing moves?

[Obvious Leo]

it is you who are posting a magical god concept when you allow for a Big Bang to occur
out of nothing -

I never once said that because I have always been emphatic in my insistence that the big bang was NOT the beginning of the universe. It was merely the beginning of this CYCLE of the universe and the universe itself had no beginning. An eternal universe needs neither gods nor a multiverse to account for its own existence and my preference for this logic is simply an appeal to Occam economy.

We haven't defined the cause of its existence yet!

If you're looking for an argument about "first causes" then you've got the wrong man to have it with. The notion of a first cause is a logical non-sequitur.

not knowing whether the 'existence' of something else didn't cause THIS universe to exist.

This is an appeal to the unknowable as an explanation for the known and thus is not philosophy.

what would be the 'cause' of their investigations as to it's possibility some of which tenuously derive from our own theories regarding this universe?

ALL of these hypotheses derive from the theory and NOT from the evidence. I need hardly remind you that the theory is known to be false, although in which way it is false is yet to be uncovered. My claim is that the theory is false because the paradigm is false. The spacetime paradigm models the world of the observer and NOT the real world.

Just curious, Leo; in your schema, can you have time without place? Would time mean anything if nothing moves?

A perceptive question. In my philosophy all notions of "place" or "locality" are solely observer constructs with no ontological provenance whatsoever, which immediately sorts out Bell's inequality issues and Einstein's nightmares of spooky action at a distance. There is no such thing as a distance, only a time interval between events so the apparently superluminal information transfer in quantum entanglement is nothing more than an observer effect. Time is meaningless if nothing moves or changes because time is simply what clocks measure, namely the rate of change in a physical system. Obviously at the Planck scale this rate of change is equated with the speed of light so the speed of light and the speed at which time passes are one and the same thing. You should be able to see that this is an exquisitely simple explanation for gravitational lensing. You should also be able to see that the entanglement of QM and the spatial "wormhole" of GR are the same physical phenomenon in two different guises.

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We haven't defined the cause of its existence yet!

That's another impossible definition. You can define any individual thing or concept that has a name and you can define the word 'cause'. Then you can attribute a cause to each event or posit a process or series of events that formed each thing.
You can find out how a thing came about; not why.

[Obvious Leo]

. You can define any individual thing or concept that has a name and you can define the word 'cause'. Then you can attribute a cause to each event or posit a process or series of events that formed each thing.

This reasoning can be logically applied to any subsystem within the universe but if we define the universe as everything that exists then it obviously can't be applied to the totality of the universe itself. If we choose not to define the universe as everything that exists then we immediately define reality as unknowable because the universe is all that we can acquire any information about. Once we define the universe as unknowable then we may as well pack up all our scientific and philosophical crap and go fishing because we have then defined all of science and philosophy as a waste of time. Any philosopher worthy of the name should reach for his hemlock without delay, and in my case it also wouldn't hurt to hope like hell that god's got an indulgent sense of humour and will thus be willing to forget all about some of the nasty shit I've said about him over the years.

[UniversalAlien]

. You can define any individual thing or concept that has a name and you can define the word 'cause'. Then you can attribute a cause to each event or posit a process or series of events that formed each thing.

This reasoning can be logically applied to any subsystem within the universe but if we define the universe as everything that exists then it obviously can't be applied to the totality of the universe itself. If we choose not to define the universe as everything that exists then we immediately define reality as unknowable because the universe is all that we can acquire any information about. Once we define the universe as unknowable then we may as well pack up all our scientific and philosophical crap and go fishing because we have then defined all of science and philosophy as a waste of time. Any philosopher worthy of the name should reach for his hemlock without delay, and in my case it also wouldn't hurt to hope like hell that god's got an indulgent sense of humour and will thus be willing to forget all about some of the nasty shit I've said about him over the years.

I like the way you think Leo, logical, makes sense, BUT you lock your thinking into a paradigm of limits that I will push my mind as far as possible to break out of - I don't understand a closed universe in fact or concept - Causes of existence can not be dismissed becuase science has no answer or because the science doesn't even exist to ask them - They are primal questions of philosophy as ancient as consciousness itself and if nothing else the consciousness of Man exists to ask questions and postulate answers. Of course it is hard to understand an existence and universe we are part of - but we try. Do you see why I keep quoting Einstein:

“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.”

Einstein was not a science fiction writer {tough I sometimes wish he was, might be very interesting sci-fi} but a physicist
who showed us that reality is indeed more interesting than sci-fi and can be seen differently than the current paradigm.

Any philosopher, in my opinion, should never use the word impossible except to prove that impossible,
like non-existence, does not exist.

As to defining the universe I would agree with your concept of it being a process, an event that is happening but as long
as Man is part of it he should still learn as much as possible to ride the Dragon into the future - a future we create
with out minds - A universe we are meant to rule.

[Skip]

. You can define any individual thing or concept that has a name and you can define the word 'cause'. Then you can attribute a cause to each event or posit a process or series of events that formed each thing.

This reasoning can be logically applied to any subsystem within the universe but if we define the universe as everything that exists then it obviously can't be applied to the totality of the universe itself.

Why not? You've defined it; you can attribute causes and describe how things happened - but they don't have to be correct or provable theories, and you've gotten nowhere at all with why. It's okay not to know everything. It's okay to make guesses - even wrong ones.

If we choose not to define the universe as everything that exists

Sure, you can do that. Not sure why you'd want to, but it's an option.

then we immediately define reality as unknowable

That doesn't necessarily follow. Choosing to define the universe as cream cheese bagel doesn't oblige you to eat it. You can also choose not to identify reality with the universe. Communication will get a little more convoluted, but, hey, we've dealt with such problems.
Anyway, that's not a definition; it's only a description, which imposes no obligation or limitation.

because the universe is all that we can acquire any information about.

No. If you chose to change your definition, you can choose to change your scope of enquiry. There is no reason you can't study parts of reality that are available, rather than the whole universe. The guy who invented the wheel and his wife who saved mango seeds managed without knowing even Saturn, never mind the restaurant on the outer rim.

Once we define the universe as unknowable then we may as well pack up all our scientific and philosophical crap and go fishing

But what would you use for bait? How would you even know fish were edible? If you've chosen to lock yourself out of the possibility of knowing any partial realities, you're just plain up Shit Creek without a rod.
So - don't choose to do that!

[Dubious]

If you're looking for an argument about "first causes" then you've got the wrong man to have it with. The notion of a first cause is a logical non-sequitur.

That which caused the Big Bang to happen is not a non-sequitur. The problem is you think mostly in philosophic terms and reply accordingly to hard edged problems that philosophy has long ceased to be preconditioned to. The predicament being if it doesn't conform to philosophy, especially your philosophy it's simply all n/a.

But call it whatever you like. To state a true TOE must define a universe sufficient to its own existence makes it essential that its beginning be understood, in short, that which existed prior to and caused the Big Bang to happen, this being one of the frontiers of cosmology and physics. If you agree that the BB happened which can only occur as an EVENT then the question becomes what preceded or caused the event to happen. An Event cannot be qualified as something that ALWAYS existed. To denote something Eternal as an Event is almost unsurpassed in the art of non-sequiturs!

This is an appeal to the unknowable as an explanation for the known and thus is not philosophy

When are you going to realize that there exists a vast abyss between philosophy and science? Pray tell, what has philosophy discovered independent of science during the last 150 years besides a lot of academic scripture? Anything? But you're right, it's not philosophy nor was it intended to be.

ALL of these hypotheses derive from the theory and NOT from the evidence

If there were 'evidence' for a multiverse, the hypotheses would precede the theory. At this time the "H" part is still too tenuous to construct the "T" part. There may not be evidence but there are indications that cannot be ignored. But to repeat, hypotheses DON'T derive from theories, they precede theories and if the evidence is viable may become theories.

I need hardly remind you that the theory is known to be false, although in which way it is false is yet to be uncovered.

What Theory?? There is no bona fide theory for a multiverse. The whole concept is only in the beginning of the hypothetical stage. It's success or lack of will determine whether the multiverse concept can incorporate into a viable theory.

Right now the only one - that I know - who knows for sure is you. When you so adamantly assert that...

The multiverse is a complete red herring because its existence can never be established, even in principle. If the big bang is accepted as a real occurrence, and there exists overwhelming evidence to suggest that it should be, then this universe cannot be causally connected to anything external to itself

...how can you be so categorically certain to assert this? How would you know that there wasn't something EXTERNAL that provided the initial thrust for the creation of THIS universe. How can ANYONE know for sure at this time? Kant 101 & philosophy are as useless here as putting rubber boots on a frog.

Up until the 1930's we lived in a galaxy we thought was the Universe and now it's not even 100 years later when we're contemplating the possibility of a multiverse partially based on ever more precise feedback from THIS universe. Considering how long it took the first time it's extremely premature to state the multiverse is a red herring only because there's not enough evidence to currently support it or negate it.

[Obvious Leo]

then we immediately define reality as unknowable


That doesn't necessarily follow.

Yes it does. If the universe is not everything that exists then we assume the existence of a causal agent external to it and even in principle nothing is knowable about such an external causal agent. Currently the god hypothesis remains fashionable in some quarters but I remain unpersuaded.

There is no reason you can't study parts of reality that are available, rather than the whole universe.

This is quite true and this is exactly what the science of physics does. Physics was specifically designed by Newton to model the behaviour of matter and energy in the universe but it was NOT designed to explain what the universe actually is. Newton made this quite plain and Niels Bohr went out of his way to emphasise this point after the development of QM. The nature of reality is the business of philosophers, not of physicists, but it helps if they arm themselves with a few facts.

But call it whatever you like. To state a true TOE must define a universe sufficient to its own existence makes it essential that its beginning be understood, in short, that which existed prior to and caused the Big Bang to happen, this being one of the frontiers of cosmology and physics.

There is a perfectly viable cosmological model already on the table which conforms to a different solution for the Friedman equations of GR. This is the cyclical universe model, popularly known as the bang/crunch model, and the fact that the total entropy of the universe is decreasing rather than increasing is powerful evidence in support of it. Most of the leading theorists support it, Heraclitus was convinced of it, as were the Hindus and the Mayans. Alan Turing even formulated the theoretical framework for it, although admittedly he was unaware of it at the time.

When are you going to realize that there exists a vast abyss between philosophy and science?

I've been a philosopher of science for forty years and I don't need this pointed out to me. It is this very abyss which leaves the physicists stranded in a conceptual cul-de-sac with models which are mutually exclusive. The problem of physics is not a problem of physics at all. The problem of physics is a problem in the way we're thinking the world. Spacetime physics is NOT modelling a dynamic process but a cadaver on a slab.

Pray tell, what has philosophy discovered independent of science during the last 150 years

I think philosophy without science is every bit as useless as science without philosophy.

[Dubious]

But call it whatever you like. To state a true TOE must define a universe sufficient to its own existence makes it essential that its beginning be understood, in short, that which existed prior to and caused the Big Bang to happen, this being one of the frontiers of cosmology and physics.

There is a perfectly viable cosmological model already on the table which conforms to a different solution for the Friedman equations of GR. This is the cyclical universe model, popularly known as the bang/crunch model, and the fact that the total entropy of the universe is decreasing rather than increasing is powerful evidence in support of it. Most of the leading theorists support it, Heraclitus was convinced of it, as were the Hindus and the Mayans. Alan Turing even formulated the theoretical framework for it, although admittedly he was unaware of it at the time.

When are you going to realize that there exists a vast abyss between philosophy and science?

I've been a philosopher of science for forty years and I don't need this pointed out to me. It is this very abyss which leaves the physicists stranded in a conceptual cul-de-sac with models which are mutually exclusive. The problem of physics is not a problem of physics at all. The problem of physics is a problem in the way we're thinking the world. Spacetime physics is NOT modelling a dynamic process but a cadaver on a slab.

Pray tell, what has philosophy discovered independent of science during the last 150 years

I think philosophy without science is every bit as useless as science without philosophy.

Well of course you would think so because as you say "You're a philosopher of science" which means you have the option - which scientists don't have - to think about it in any way you please and make whatever comments you like since you won't be tested. This is very common on internet forums and there's no shortage of people doing it. Actually Lee Smolin wrote an article which included this phenomenon back in 2002. An interesting read it was.

Philosophers whatever be their interests write with no fear of being handicapped by reality whereas physicists more often than not are checkmated by it, success being defined by data and not opinion. Hard science as compared to soft; nature steering the ship which so often in the past made spaghetti of the bloody obvious.

For instance, you still make the assertion that entropy in the Universe is decreasing without any further comment as to why you would say this when the Second Law of Thermodynamics makes it explicitly clear that the opposite is true. The entropy in the universe is increasing. I haven't encountered any references or fact to the contrary. How is one to reconcile this with the views of leading theorists as you proclaim? As for Heraclitus, the Hindus and Mayans, they were all brilliant but extraneous since they wouldn't have known anything about the kind of things studied by physicists in the 20th & 21st centuries. Neither would dear Omar.

Of course it could be me who's ignorant, talking nonsense, that most people here understand you better since my neurons may no-longer have the candle power to catch up.

[Obvious Leo]

you have the option - which scientists don't have - to think about it in any way you please and make whatever comments you like since you won't be tested.

Not so. My philosophy doubles as a legitimate scientific hypothesis, since it yields a testable prediction which would unambiguously falsify current theory.

For instance, you still make the assertion that entropy in the Universe is decreasing without any further comment as to why you would say this when the Second Law of Thermodynamics makes it explicitly clear that the opposite is true.

The second law of thermodynamics is a conclusion derived from the theory and not one deduced from the evidence. There can be no question that it applies to all subsystems within the universe but there can be equally no question that it does NOT apply to the universe as a whole. There is still much dispute about many details concerning the big bang but there is no dispute at all about the fact that the universe started out unimaginably HOT and has been steadily cooling down ever since, exactly the opposite of what the second law mandates because heat=Higher entropy, not lower. Furthermore it has evolved progressively more complex structures within itself over time and this is utterly impossible if the second law of thermodynamics applies to the entire cosmos. The universe is Evolving rather than DEvolving and if you wish to put the counter-argument I'd be delighted to see it.

As for Heraclitus, the Hindus and Mayans, they were all brilliant but extraneous since they wouldn't have known anything about the kind of things studied by physicists in the 20th & 21st centuries. Neither would dear Omar.

Don't bet on it. These ancient cosmologists understood that reality is a PROCESS and this puts them at least one step ahead of the modern illuminati.

Of course it could be me who's ignorant, talking nonsense, that most people here understand you better since my neurons may no-longer have the candle power to catch up.

I don't think you're either ignorant or talking nonsense, Dubious, and if I've given you that impression then I apologise without reservation and assure you that this was never my intent. However I do feel that you're defending a theory which you seem to understand only sketchily and what's more you're defending it with far more confidence than any of the leading theoretical physicists would dare to. ALL of the major players know fucking well that spacetime is a rotting corpse which cannot be revived and that physics will remain moribund until a better paradigm replaces it. Since you quoted Smolin I presume you've read him but Lee Smolin is by no means the only one who will agree with me on this point.